1. HubSpot Live Chat

If you’re a HubSpot CRM user, it’s a perfect fit. When an agent chats to someone who’s already in the CRM, they can see their communication history and profile, thus laying the perfect foundation for a chat.

HubSpot Live Chat also enables you to create support tickets and deals directly from the chat window to save time and improve internal collaboration.

Oh, and it integrates nicely with Slack, too!

Price: Free

2. LiveAgent

LiveAgent slots perfectly into any existing website thanks to a handy widget that can be inserted without any coding knowledge.

Priced fairly for businesses of all sizes, LiveAgent features a universal inbox that captures all chat, email, call and social media activity from contacts.

There’s chatbot functionality, too, thanks to automation rules that can be set to automatically answer incoming chats and distribute them intelligently among the team.

Price: from $15 per agent, per month

3. Freshdesk

Canned responses, intelligent ticket assignment and features that can be customised for each team member make Freshdesk a strong contender.

Just like LiveAgent, Freshdesk takes an omnichannel approach by combining all incoming communication from customers. Emails, phone calls and social media mentions can be captured alongside chats to streamline customer conversations.

4. Drift

Arguably one of the prettiest online chat platforms, Drift is a relatively new entrant to the market but has already received plenty of positive attention.

Drift features all of the key online chat features businesses need, from automation to virtual assistants and team collaboration. It scores big time, however, thanks to a focus on lead generation.

LeadBot is a chatbot tool built directly into Drift which can automatically book meetings with contacts and divert new leads into a CRM. Think of it as an ever-present lead generation machine for you website that doesn’t sleep, get sick or need holiday entitlement.

Price: Free (from $50 per month for more advanced tiers)

5. Zendesk Chat

Zendesk has been around for a while now and has invested a huge amount of experience into its chat platform.

Unlike Drift, Zendesk Chat is focused on customer service, but there’s no reason it can’t be used for lead generation and sales teams, too.

Fully customisable and easily integrated into any website, Zendesk Chat also features a great AI chatbot that can answer common queries in a spookily human-like fashion, enabling sales teams to focus on dealing with more complex questions.

Price: from £5 per agent, per month

Live chat will provide your customers with a convenient, fast route to your team and help you avoid missing out on new website leads. Which platform will you choose?